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Bullying in Adolescent Residential Care: The Influence of the Physical and Social Residential Care Environment

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Abstract

Background

To date, no study examined possible contributions of environmental factors to bullying and victimization in adolescent residential care facilities.

Objective

By testing one part of the Multifactor Model of Bullying in Secure Setting (MMBSS; Ireland in Int J Adolesc Med Health 24(1):63–68, 2012), this research examined the way the physical and social residential environment relates to bullying and victimization in adolescent residential care.

Method

Young people aged 11–21 (N = 272) from ten residential institutions in Croatia completed: (a) an anonymous self-reported bullying questionnaire; (b) the social residential environment questionnaire; and (c) the physical residential environment questionnaire.

Results

The results demonstrated that both bullies and victims reported having significantly lower levels of perceived peer support than other residents. Male bullies also reported significantly lower levels of their overall wellbeing within their facilities and were significantly more likely than non-bullies to perceive their facilities as having problems with cleanliness and food. Male victims were significantly younger than non-victims. Female victims reported lower levels of their overall wellbeing than non-victims as well as poorer relationship with staff.

Conclusion

The results are discussed with reference to the relevant prison and school-based bullying literature and directions for future research are provided. Overall, the findings of this study are consistent with the part of the MMBSS (Ireland 2012) examined and provide initial support for the notion that the special nature of the physical and social residential environment may be important in explaining bullying in care.

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Notes

  1. Sinclair and Gibbs (2000) did not focus specifically on bullying in care. Rather, they studied bullying within the context of a wider study on the overall experience of living in English children’s homes. The results of the study by Sekol (2011) are available as Sekol and Farrington (2009, 2010, 2011) and Sekol (2013).

  2. A more recent study (Fite et al. 2013) has examined locations in which school bullying occurs and found that the playground was the most frequent location for victimization, followed by home, the neighborhood, and the school bus. However, although valuable, this study was descriptive and therefore it only managed to identify places of bullying, without explaining the ways in which certain elements of these locations (either social or physical) relate to victimization.

  3. To authentically portray Croatian residential care facilities, the elements of the physical and social residential environment examined in this paper slightly differ from those described in the MMBSS.

  4. The reason for this was threefold. First, the stigmatising nature of the term bullying may encourage dishonest answers (Ireland 2002a, b, c, d; Theriot et al. 2005). Second, participants may have different understanding of the definition of bullying (Connell and Farrington 1996). Third, there is no exact equivalent for the term bullying in Croatian (for details on lack of appropriate translation of the term in Croatian contexts, see Sekol and Farrington 2009).

  5. Recall that, with the proposed definition, residents are classified as bullies or victims if they reported at least one item indicative or bullying or at least one item indicative of victimisation happening two or three times a month or more often.

  6. In factorial ANOVAs separate effects of being a bully (or not), and being a victim (or not), and then the interaction between these were analysed (not shown in tables).

  7. As noted in the introduction, one study (Lee 2011) examined the relationship between ‘peer interactions’ and bullying. However, this study did not examine peer support per se, nor did it find the relationship between ‘peer interactions’ and bullying.

  8. The rule making process is described in more detail elsewhere (Sekol 2013).

  9. Other policy implications that could prove to be useful in tackling the high level of bullying found in this study, are provided in Sekol and Farrington (2009).

  10. Items measuring residents’ victimization were equivalent to bullying items (e.g. the first victimization item was as follows: ‘Does it happen that other resident(s) don’t want to hang around with you and you end up being alone?

  11. For each item indicative of bullying and victimisation response options ‘a. No, it never happens; b. It has only happened once or twice since I came here; c. Yes, it happens about two or three times a month; d. Yes, it happens once a week; e. Yes, it happens several times a week’ were offered.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Education, Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek, Cara Hadrijana 10, 31000, Osijek, Croatia

    Ivana Sekol

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  1. Ivana Sekol
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Correspondence to Ivana Sekol.

Appendix

Appendix

Twenty-five items measuring residents’ bullying behaviour.Footnote 10

  1. 1.

    Does it happen that you don’t want to hang around with somebody and that he/she ends up being alone?Footnote 11

  2. 2.

    Does it happen that you spread rumours about other resident(s)?

  3. 3.

    Does it happen that you gossip about other resident(s)?

  4. 4.

    Does it happen that you try to turn other residents against someone?

  5. 5.

    Does it happen that you call other resident(s) names about their nationality, religion or a region they come from?

  6. 6.

    Does it happen that you call other resident(s) names about their physical appearance?

  7. 7.

    Does it happen that you make fun of someone’s family?

  8. 8.

    Does it happen that you call other resident(s) names about something else?

  9. 9.

    Does it happen that you force other resident(s) to lie for you?

  10. 10.

    Does it happen that you lie about the rules of the facility to new residents to make them look stupid?

  11. 11.

    Does it happen that you stare at other resident(s) in a threatening way?

  12. 12.

    Does it happen that you force other resident(s) to do your chores?

  13. 13.

    Does it happen that you threaten, pressure or intimidate other resident(s)?

  14. 14.

    Does it happen that you punch, push or hit other resident(s)?

  15. 15.

    Does it happen that you beat up other resident(s)?

  16. 16.

    Does it happen that you steal from other resident(s)?

  17. 17.

    Does it happen that you deliberately destroy personal space or personal belongings of other resident(s)?

  18. 18.

    Does it happen that you borrow other resident(s) something and then demand they pay you back more (or even double) than what you landed them?

  19. 19.

    Does it happen that you participate in covering other resident(s) with a blanket while they are asleep and then hitting or teasing them?

  20. 20.

    Does it happen that you participate in putting a piece of paper between other resident(s) toes when they are asleep and setting this paper on fire?

  21. 21.

    Does it happen that you participate in suddenly shaking other resident(s)’ beds or sliding them out of their beds while they are asleep?

  22. 22.

    Does it happen that you participate in suddenly starting to shout at other residents while they are asleep to scare them?

  23. 23.

    Does it happen that you touch other resident(s) in a sexual way when they don’t really want it?

  24. 24.

    Does it happen that you force other resident(s) to touch you in a sexual way when they don’t really want it?

  25. 25.

    Does it happen that you force other resident(s) to have a sexual intercourse with you even though they don’t really want it?

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Sekol, I. Bullying in Adolescent Residential Care: The Influence of the Physical and Social Residential Care Environment. Child Youth Care Forum 45, 409–431 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10566-015-9336-8

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